Paxman I hated my father for leaving
Jeremy Paxman has spoken of his hatred for his dad, who left the family for a new life in Australia.
Keith Paxman, a typewriter salesman, moved when his eldest son was a 24-year-old BBC trainee.
Broadcaster Paxman writes in his memoirs A Life in Questions: “Did I love my father?
“My feelings ranged from resentment to passionate hatred.”
He recalled how his father once introduced him to his golf club friends as “one of those homosexual communists from the BBC”.
He added in an interview yesterday that he had no idea how old his mother was when she died.
Paxman, 66, said: “It’s strange, death, isn’t it?
“However old you are, when you’ve f inally lost both your parents, there is a feeling of being orphaned.
“I think it’s very cruel that all the vibrant memories I have of my mother are now intertwined with the memory of how she looked at the point of her death.”
Asked how old she was, he said: “I’m ashamed to say I cannot tell you.”
He added of his experience of depression: “I didn’ t ex act ly have a breakdown. But it was pretty like one.”
And he said of his reputation as a journalist: “I know that I will always be Mr Rude or whatever.
“But I know that’s not me. It’s a small part of any human being.”
A Life in Questions is published on October 6.